"When among my constituents I almost invariably call for a gourd for drinking purposes in preference to a tumbler; but in this company I shall abandon a custom of the plain people and yield to the habits of the sons of Mammon. I am here, I take it, once more in my official capacity as governor of South Carolina, and as I am not one to offend the best sentiments of my people, I pledge you, my friends, not in the untaxed corn whisky of Appleweight's private still, but in the excellent and foamy buttermilk of Mrs. Appleweight's homely churn."
As he concluded, Governor Dangerfield rose and performed exactly the same solemn rite with the jug before him, pouring whisky into one glass, buttermilk into the other, and leaning across the table he touched his tumbler of buttermilk to that extended by Governor Osborne. When the applause that greeted this exchange of courtesies had subsided, Governor Dangerfield was still standing, and in a quiet conversational tone, and with a manner engagingly frank, he said:
"Before it seemed expedient to follow the reform bandwagon, I held certain principles touching the drinking habit. But the American bar has destroyed drinking as a fine art, and it has now become a vulgar habit. In the good old times no gentleman ever jumped at his liquor. He took it with a casual air, even with a sanctifying reluctance. The idea of rushing into a public place and gulping your liquor is repugnant to the most primary of the instincts that govern gentlemen. To precipitate a gill of applejack into that most delicate organism, the human stomach, without the slightest warning, is an insult to the human body,—ay, more, it is an outrage upon man's very soul. The aim of liquor, ladies and gentlemen, is to stay and lift the spirit, not to degrade it. Drinking at proper intervals ceased to be respectable at a fixed date in human progress—to be exact, at the moment when it was no longer a mere incident of personal or social recreation but had become a sociological and political issue, staggering drunkenly under a weary burden of most painful statistics."
"You are eminently right, Governor Dangerfield," said the governor of South Carolina, helping himself to the salted almonds; "but you have used a phrase which piques my curiosity. Will you kindly enlighten us as to how you interpret proper intervals?"
"With greatest pleasure," responded Governor Dangerfield. "I remember, as though it were yesterday, my venerable grandfather saying that no gentleman should ever approach the sideboard oftener than once before breakfast, and he was himself a very early riser. I discount this, however, because he always slept with a jug of Cuban rum—the annual offering of a West Indian friend—easily within his reach at the head of his bed. It was his practice for years to sip a little rum and water while he shaved. He was a gentleman if ever I knew one and as I look upon him as a standard authority in all matters of deportment and morals, I may safely cite him further in answer to your question.
"During the long open season in our country my grandfather constantly rode over the plantation in immaculate white duck followed by a darky on a mule carrying a basket. On our ancestral estate there were many springs giving the purest and coldest of water, and these were providentially scattered at the most convenient intervals for my grandfather's comfort. And as a slight return to nature for what she had done for him in this particular, my grandfather, in his early youth, had planted mint around all these springs. I need hardly point out the advantages of this happiest of combinations—a spring of clear, icy water; the pungent bouquet of lush mint; the ample basket home by a faithful negro, and my grandfather, in his white duck suit and a Panama hat a yard wide, seated by the mossy spring, selecting with the most delicate care the worthiest of the fragrant leaves.
"Now"—and Governor Dangerfield smiled—"I can see that you are all busy guessing at the number of stops made by my grandfather in the course of a day, and I hasten to satisfy your curiosity. My grandfather always started out at six o'clock in the morning, and the springs were so arranged that he had to make six stops before noon, and four in the afternoon; but at five o'clock, when he reached home all fagged out by a hard day's work and sorely needing refreshment, a pitcher of cherry bounce was waiting for him on the west gallery of the house. After that he took nothing but a night-cap on retiring for the night. To my friend, the governor of South Carolina, I need offer no apologies for my grandfather, once a senator in Congress, and a man distinguished for his sobriety and probity. He was an upright man and a gentleman, and died at ninety-two, full of years and honors, and complaining, almost with his last breath, of a distressing dusty feeling in the throat."
When, as time passed, it seemed that every one had told a story or made a speech, it was Ardmore's inspiration that Griswold should sing a song. The associate professor of admiralty in the University of Virginia had already pledged the loyalty of his state to her neighbors and twin sisters, the Carolinas, and Barbara, who wore a great bunch of her own white roses, had listened to him with a new respect and interest, for he spoke well, with the special grace of speech that men of his state have, and with little turns of humor that kept the table bubbling merrily.
"I shall comply with your request, my friends, if you can bear with the poor voice of one long out of tune, and if our host still has in the house a certain ancient guitar I remember from old times. But I must impose one condition, that I shall not again in this place be called by my academic title. I have known wars and the shock of battle along the Raccoon"—here his hand went to his lips in the gesture that had so often distressed Ardmore—"and I have known briefly the joy of a military title. Miss Osborne conferred on me in an emergency the noble title of major, and by it I demand hereafter to be known."
The governor of South Carolina was promptly upon his feet.